In the Breaking
by Dream Hime
Summary: The first time Kagome sees Loki, she runs as far away as she can. It is not enough.


I own nothing but the thought behind this. And even those may have been picked up elsewhere.

1.

The first time Kagome sees Loki, she is walking down the streets of her hometown. She's just completed an assignment and she misses everything that ever was. She is standing on the steps of the shrine that used to be hers and is hoping for a glance of a many times great-grandchild who could never know.

Instead, she catches sight of a man dressed in leather. He is gorgeous and poised and wonderful. He glances down all those stairs and she feels it when their eyes meet. She takes in the face of this stranger, this magnificent male (because he is not just a man) and turns away from him.

Really, he's a tall hot glass of Nope and she's dropped him into the category of Fucknonotgoingthere. She pretends she doesn't feel the world bend, that he doesn't fall into step next to her as if he's always been. She ignores the fingers trailing through the ends of her too-long hair (hadn't Romanoff told her to cut it?), and the eyes that bore into the side of her face.

She pretends she can't feel the slide of the filth and decay that's crawling through his beautiful mind and destroying everything in its path.

She steps into a bookstore and he follows. She feels his amused curiosity. And then he is surprised because she's flickering away, disappearing and reappearing too quickly for him to follow even though he is not a man.

But she is not mortal either.

2.

The second time she's sees him, Nick Fury's glamm'd out team has picked him up. She is in her office working when she glances up to see him on the other side of the glass. He has stopped walking and is staring at her with an intensity she hasn't felt in decades. This catches everyone's attention and she can hear the murmurs creeping through a network of spies and backstabbers (because being one does not automatically make you the other).

When he is gone, she pretends to not see people glancing into her window. She pretends to ignore them all. But she cannot. It has been many years since she's been anything but invisible.

Hill summons her to Fury. She goes, wary and annoyed. Rarely does Fury ask for her. She walks into a room where Fury's newest toys have gathered. He scowls at her when she enters. Next to him, Stark studies her in a pointed way. It's expected of him to leer at the newcomer. He waggles his eyebrows and makes a lewd remark. She lets it fly over her head and pretends he doesn't exist. Rogers is smiling at her apologetically but she can see the gears turning in his mind.

"Tell me this Higurashi, why's Loki so taken with you?"

She shrugs carelessly. Banner is peering at her, gentleness and lies. She knows he is angry, can feel that anger building and fading with every breath he takes.

"You don't know why he's asking for you?" Fury snarks. "Any recent meetings? Maybe you spread your legs for him on some occasion or the other."

Kagome meets his gaze lazily.

"I wouldn't know. I seem to have spread my legs for many things over the years." She smiles at him and she knows too many teeth are showing when his gaze drops and he turns away. Fury hates her and hates her because he is scared of her.

The thunder god looks thunder-struck and isn't that just silly? He's staring at her like all of his hopes and dreams have come to life and he doesn't know what to do with them.

"I'll go get a repeat performance. Maybe it'll jog my memory." She turns away and begins to walk out of the room. Hill grabs her elbow and holds it. Kagome looks at her but the woman doesn't release her. Hill is clutching her stomach and throwing up in the next second.

"Higurashi." Romanoff greets quietly.

"Romanoff." She keeps walking. When she gets to her office, she pulls out her next case and starts learning about her next target.

3.

The third time she sees Loki, he pops into her office. His eyes are bright and blue and so delighted. She punches him in the throat and flees because what the ever loving fuck is going on? She hears Banner-Beast raging ahead of her and she slips down another hallway instead. Thor smashes through the walls seconds before she takes her next step and she stops running to look for Banner-Beast. Kagome knows the moment he sees her because he forgets everything around him and smiles at her. He picks himself up off the ground and reaches for her.

Banner-Beast punches him through the floor. The green behemoth snarls at her but doesn't attack because she is not afraid of him, she is not hurting him and he knows that if he tries to harm her, there will be nothing that can save him from her anger. So he rips the floor open and attacks the thunder man.

Interlude

Kagome stares at Nick Fury and knows that what he is saying cannot be real. He is forcing her to join his Initiative. If she refuses, he'll tell the world her secret. She'll become a commodity, hunted, preyed on, used. Her powers will be bound towards the will of mankind. She can cure everything from cancer to the cold and she'll never see the sun again. Shaking with rage, she doesn't attack him, doesn't kill him, because his death will send a message to Council and they'll never let her go.

One day, she will kill him for his betrayal. But for now, she undresses to slip into the bodysuit that's been custom made for her. He smiles and doesn't hide how much he appreciates the work she's put into her body. His eye trails down her form as she dresses and she is two seconds from slitting his throat and damn the consequences when she finishes dressing. He makes a disappointed face and Kagome wants to slam his face into the desk and make him hurt. He opens his mouth to say something and she flickers away, free falling through the sun and sky to escape shoving her sword down his throat and telling him to suck on it nice and slow. She spins into the fall and flickers again and suddenly she is in New York.

4.

She crouches over Loki and studies him. Banner-Beast has been here. The god of trickery is all but spent. She studies him and sees much that does not belong. So reaches into him, through him and pulls the greasy blackness that coats so much of him out, cleansing and healing along the way. The sludge has been there for more than a century and she is saddened for the man before her (because he is weaker than she thought). She grinds the blackness out of his soul and leaves him behind, clean and fresh and whole.

Interlude

Tony can't believe his eyes when the woman he propositioned earlier steps out of thin air and onto the back of the flying whale thing he was about to shoot. He can't help but think her bodysuit makes her all sorts of delicious and ponders what sort of filthy things he can say to her when they meet face-to-face. But then he catches sight of her eyes and those ideas are dropped before they're completed. They're silver and inhuman and as he watches he feels the air thickening with something terrible and beautiful.

She kneels on the head of the whale thing and runs her fingers over its flesh and it is screaming and dying and dissolving into ash. She falls though it's dissolving form and he doesn't want to catch her but he starts towards her only for her to land on a Chitauri. It looks almost staged as she beheads it with a lazy swipe and steps off the craft onto another below.

Tony feels ill as he watches, remembering what he said to her earlier. He promises himself that he will keep his mouth shut the next time they meet, no matter how delectable her ass looks because she is on a different level from Natasha and he doesn't even understand.

She is brutal and heartless and powerful.

She terrifies him.

5.

The next time Kagome sees Loki, he's is bound and gagged. Fury is gloating about his loss and the Avengers are milling about like brainless sheep. Loki sees her first and his eyes are bright and green and so thankful. Thor sees her next and shoves his brother away to approach her. He is smiling widely when he holds his hand out to her.

Kagome does not feel bad when she flicks a dagger into the outstretched palm. The thunder god howls in pain as his flesh blackens and burns and melts. He pulls the dagger out and casts it aside, stepping back warily.

Now the Avengers are studying her. They are reaching for weapons. Fury is doing his best to look as if he is not using them as a shield. She walks to Loki and the metal gag falls from his mouth.

"What the fuck do you think you are doing?" Fury bellows.

"Tell me, what color are Loki's eyes?" Blue they say. Kagome makes a sound of amusement. "They look green to me."

It is Barton who understands first. He is angry and ashamed but he understands. Because his eyes had been that shade of blue too. He looks at Loki like he wants to hate him, but now he can't. Because what is a slave but a slave? Kagome smiles at him, and resolves to fix him. Someone so smart does not deserve to be broken.

"Does this mean my brother has not caused this damage? That he was but a slave to someone else's will?"

Loki is staring at her as if she is the most precious thing in the world. He lowers himself to his knees from where he stands. He does not try to approach her, to beckon her as his brother did. Kagome finds it endearing. She steps past the blustering Avengers and stands in front of him. She runs her hands through his hair and hums in appreciation.

This bright, beautiful man understands her. And he is the first one to ever do so. Stark makes a spluttering noise.

"How long?" Loki murmurs.

"Almost a thousand years." He breathes in a sharp breath.

"That is far too long." She makes a noise in the back of her throat. "You could come to Asgard. You would be welcomed."

"Would I?" He peers up at her.

"I would welcome you." She traces his jaw line and hums in response.

"He would not be able to keep you." Thor interrupts. "He is but the second son. His crimes against Midgard will not go unpunished."

"And who would refuse me?" Kagome prods. Loki's eyes are closed and he has rested his forehead against her leg. She cards her fingers through his hair again. "Tell me, who would weave spells that would break his mind? Who would make him a thing of anger and rage?"

"The Chitauri are not to blame for everything. My brother has been going into the darkness for much time."

"A century of darkness because someone tried to contain him." Kagome kneels in front of Loki. She is smaller than him and she can see when his eyes go wide, but she is not done. She presses her head to the ground and speaks. "I am Kagome Higurashi. I am a Priestess. I was made to serve the gods. My goddess cast me out when I grew too powerful. She could not kill me because she had already gifted me, but she no longer protected me. I was only human, and a human mind cannot handle millennia of memories, of thoughts, of grief. I am broken but I am useful. Should you accept me, I will serve only you. I will love only you. I will protect only you."

She can feel the disbelief of those around her, and once again it is Barton who understands. She was made to serve and left alone. He remembers the moments, short as they were when Loki had set him aside and feels ill.

Loki touches her head.

"Oh dearest one, I welcome you. You are mine to protect. Mine to love. Mine to cherish." She looks up at him as if he is her sun and stars and he can feel where her mind has shattered and broken and shattered again.

He wants to weep at the damage whatever goddess she'd served has caused. Instead, he pulls her to her feet and fixes what he can.

6.

Loki studies his wife as kneels in front of the Allfather. She looks up at him, blue eyes wide with innocence. She knows who poured the greasy black spells into Loki's soul.

"I have been thrice-sworn to Loki Odinson," she begins, her voice delicate and trembling. "And he has sworn himself to me as well my lord."

"If he has tricked you thus, it can be undone. My first son would gladly protect you."

"I was not tricked you idiot." And his wife is standing and she is glorious. She is a liar, a trickster, his lover, his match. Odin stands as well, furious.

"How dare you?"

"How dare I? You who let spells twist your son into what he became?" She flicks her hand and suddenly someone is screaming and screaming and Odin looks surprised. Kagome pulls the curtain aside and yanks a woman out, dragging her by her hair. "You who would let this bitch poison your own child?"

Loki looks at Sigyn, the wife-that-never-was, and despairs. Because had not Odin pushed Sigyn towards him in the beginning? Had he not redirected her attention from Thor onto him? Had Odin known what she would do? Kagome snaps the cords between Sigyn and her magic and watches as she convulses on the ground.

The court is silent. They are waiting to see what will happen to Loki's pet. But nothing happens to her. She turns to Loki and they walk away together. They miss Frigga cutting the throat of the woman who dared to turn her son against her.

7.

Loki watches his wife as she bathes. Her stomach is round with his child and they have been granted a home away from Odin, away from Thor. Frigga has blessed them and begs only to see her grandchild. Kagome allows it.

Loki can feel her mind healing still and soon, soon he hopes she will be whole again. She is silly and loving and cares not that he is the son of frost giants. To her, he is her husband.

And she is his wife.

This is all that matters.


End file.
